‘Buster Scruggs’: 25 Shots That Prove the Coen Brothers’ First Movie Shot on Digital Is a Visual Stunner

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After winning best screenplay honors at Venice, Joel and Ethan Coen’s “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” will play the New York Film Festival, before opening on November 16 in select theaters and on Netflix.

The film finds the directors working without their usual cinematographer, Roger Deakins, instead reuniting with their “Inside Llewyn Davis” DP Bruno Delbonnel. The cinematographer was Oscar nominated for “Davis,” and now he’s back in the race with “Buster Scruggs,” which is notable for being the first Coen brothers movie shot on digital.

“Buster Scruggs,” originally announced as a television series, is an anthology film consisting of six different stories. While each chapter features new characters and storylines, they are all connected in their bleak outlook on life and death in the old West (in other words, this is typical Coen brothers fare).

Bruno Delbonnel first worked with the Coen brothers on the 2006 anthology film “Paris, je t’aime,” in which he shot their segment entitled “Tuileries.” The cinematographer is best known for “Amélie,” “A Very Long Engagement,” and “Darkest Hour,” all of which earned him Oscar nominations.

Delbonnel and the Coen brothers film each chapter with wildly different visual approaches. The dark greys of the bank in “Near Algodones” recall the cinematographer’s Oscar-nominated work in the Coen’s “Inside Llewyn Davis.”

Every Western needs a few jaw-dropping landscape shots, and the “Buster Scurggs” trailer has no shortage of them. The Coen brothers told Variety they began writing the stories featured in the film almost 25 years ago.

While Delbonnel might not be as much of a regular collaborator as Roger Deakins, the Coen brothers are working with their trusted artistic team on “Buster Scruggs,” which includes production designer Jess Gonchor, costume designer Mary Zophres, and composer Carter Burwell.

The Coen Brothers are in good company on Netflix this fall, as the streaming giant is also releasing new films from Alfonso Cuaron (“Roma”), Paul Greengrass (“22 July”), and Orson Welles (“The Other Side of the Wind”).

Nelson’s chapter requires him to sing the song “Cold Water,” which he told Variety the Coen brothers filmed in a very specific way. “They shot it in three different places over three days, that one song, because of absolutely specific backdrop images that they wanted,” he said. “It’s that meticulous.”

“We’ve always loved anthology movies, especially those films made in Italy in the Sixties which set side-by-side the work of different directors on a common theme,” the Coen brothers have said about their inspiration for the movie.

Delbonnel’s digital photography on “Buster Scruggs” recalls his collaborations with Tim Burton, especially this shadow-filled shot. The DP worked with Burton on “Dark Shadows,” “Big Eyes,” and “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.”

In “Near Algodones,” Franco’s ill-fated bank robber winds up in a clever slapstick conundrum involving a couple of horses and more than one noose.

“Buster Scruggs” is a Netflix movie, but Delbonnel’s cinematography is tailor made for the big screen. Fortunately, Netflix is comitted to rolling out the film in select theaters this November. “Theatrical release was important to us, and they were happy to accommodate us,” Ethan Coen said at Venice.

Ralph Ineson, best known for playing the father in “The Witch,” stars as The Man in Black in “Near Algodones.”

Tom Waits has a chapter all to himself called “All Gold Canyon.” The musician plays a prospector mining for gold.

Waits’ chapter was called the best of “Buster Scruggs” by IndieWire’s Eric Kohn. “Waits single-handedly carries this snapshot of a gold digger in the vast countryside,” Kohn wrote. “The story builds to a surprise twist midway through, with Waits’ frazzled face and tough demeanor emerging as one of the very best avatars of the Coens’ recurring fixations.”

Nelson’s chapter “seems to relish the exuberance of the genre, upping the ante to a glorious degree as the body count rises,” Kohn writes in his Venice review. This segment is told from different perspectives, including a guitar, and features Nelson breaking the fourth wall.

Delbonnel’s more gothic cinematography in “The Mortal Remains” sets the film’s final chapter apart from its predecessors. “Bruno Delbonnel treats every image as a new opportunity to enrich the strangeness on display,” IndieWire’s review says of the DP.

The Coen brothers have spoken about transitioning from film to digital for some some. While they inteded to shoot their last feature, “Hail, Caesar!” on digital, they came to the conclusion with Roger Deakins that the movie’s old Hollywood setting required film.

Delbonnel has some fun with the lush greens in “All Gold Canyon,” which looks to make the chapter one of the most visually impressive in all of “Buster Scruggs.”

Zoe Kazan leads the chapter “The Gal Who Got Rattled” as Alice Longabaugh, a woman who finds an unexpected promise of love and cruelty while traveling by wagon across the midwest.

Following “Buster Scruggs,” Delbonnel will join Joe Wright for the thriller “The Woman in the Window.” The DP earned an Oscar nomination last year for his work on Wright’s “Darkest Hour.”

“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” opens in select theaters and on Netflix beginning November 16.